No Money for Running, but Plenty for Bowl Games

Twenty percent of schools participating in college football bowls have made cuts to men’s running programs.

Starting December 21, college football bowl games will occupy the television sets of sports fans across America nearly every day until the Vizio BCS National Championship on January 6. It’s the time of year when unwieldy, corporate-branded contests like the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl and the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl befuddle the vernacular, and the nation is treated to mighty clashes such as the 6-6 Washington State Cougars taking on the marginally more distinguished 7-6 Colorado State Rams. It’s the 17 days of bowl season, and, in all, there will be 70 teams a-playing.

But despite NCAA President Mark Emmert’s assertion that Division I non-revenue sports like cross-country and track owe their survival to the success and profitability of football (and men’s basketball)—this year’s class of bowl teams hardly inspires confidence. One in five of them—14 in all—have previously eliminated one or both of their men’s track and field and cross-country programs.

Yes, there’s the Valero Alamo Bowl clash of football powers Texas and Oregon, both of which have highly successful track and field and cross-country programs, but then there’s also the Military Bowl between Maryland and Marshall, two schools that have recently cut men’s teams.

NCAA Division I schools prioritize football because it has the potential to bring in money to help finance itself and other programs and, in theory, making a bowl game is a means to that end. But as many of the examples below demonstrate, that isn’t a universal truth. Many schools have struggled with bloated athletic budgets to the point that they’ve had to cut sports. The great irony of this is that the football players (up to 125 of them) at these same schools will be allowed under NCAA rules to receive gifts valued at up to $550 from the sponsors of their bowl games. On top of that, the schools themselves are permitted to give gifts of up to $400 to each football player, which means that it is acceptable for up to $118,750 in gifts to be given to a football team for making a postseason game, even if that game is the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl—and even if it’s a school that has whacked teams due to budget shortfalls in the past. That max gift amount could cover about 14 percent of the expenses of a typical track and field and cross-country program at one of these institutions.

Here is a guide to those schools and the spoils they’ll be enjoying this bowl season, based on Sports Business Daily’s list of this year’s bowl game “swag.” Pass the Tostitos!

After an uncharacteristically weak season, the 11-time national champion Trojans football team will be relegated to the first day of bowl season this year. But for a school that hails from a power conference (the Pac-12), and that boasts 121 national championships in athletics, 28 from men’s track and field alone, it may come as a surprise to learn that USC is one of three Pac-12 schools that does not offer men’s cross-country. A school spokesperson says that it was once a varsity sport, but “was affected by adjustment in the ratio of men’s to women’s sports,” and was cut before the 1994 season. The school does have a distance club named the Men of Troy. In Vegas, each football player will be treated to a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 tablet, a beanie/cap, an Oakley Flak Pack XL backpack, a football, and a Zappos gift card.

More often than not, the bowl teams missing one or both parts of a men’s running program come from the weaker, less profitable bowl-eligible conferences, those outside of the NCAA’s “power five”: the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC. The Aztecs, of the Mountain West conference, are one of them. They’ll travel to Boise to vie for all the spuds on the opening day of bowl action, but will also return home, win or lose, with their choice of swag from a “gift suite,”* a Port Authority coat, a Tiger Woods-brand Nike golf beanie, Scott winter ski gloves, an iPack backpack, and a football. Meanwhile, though the school offers women’s track and field and cross-country, it eliminated its men’s programs in both sports in 1993.

*Sports Business Daily explains: “Gift suites are set up as private events prior to the game” where athletes and often VIPs have their pick from numerous luxury items, including, this year, a powered home theater recliner and other “high-end electronics, jewelry and mountain bikes.”

Ohio is just the first of several Mid-American Conference (MAC) schools to land on this unfortunate list. While the football team flies south for this winter bowl in sunny Florida, many in the Athens, Ohio, running community are likely still feeling the chill from the 2007 decision by the school to eliminate men’s indoor and outdoor track and field (along with men’s swimming and diving, and women’s lacrosse) due to budget issues and Title IX compliance concerns. The gridiron Bobcats will return home with new Samsung Galaxy Tab 3s, Oakley Breadbox sunglasses, Oakley Status backpacks, and Schutt mini helmets.

Enter the curious case of the Oregon State Beavers, who waved aloha! to both their men’s and women’s cross-country and track and field programs back in 1988 due to budget constraints. For years, the absence of any running program at OSU was perplexing, given the school’s healthy sports rivalry with the University of Oregon, a track and cross-country powerhouse—not to mention the Beaver men were cross-country national champs in 1961. The first step toward reviving the sports began with the return of a women’s distance program in 2004, and, with the completion of the Whyte Track and Field Center early in 2013, OSU hosted its first track meet in a quarter-century in March. But there’s still no men’s running program in Corvallis. The football team will return from Honolulu with new Oakley sunglasses, Tori Richard aloha shirts, Pro Athletics shorts and performance T-shirts, Ogio backpacks, beach towels, and their choice from a robust gift suite.

Bowling Green is the second MAC school from the state of Ohio to make this list. In 2002, the school cut men’s indoor and outdoor track, men’s swimming, and men’s tennis to help slash their athletic budget and address the school’s Title IX compliance. Their men’s cross-country team has struggled in the absence of a spring track season, finishing dead last in the conference championships in eight of 11 seasons since track got cut, and next-to-last in the other three. For participating in the Detroit bowl game, the Falcons football players will receive a Timely Watch Co. watch, a leather luggage set, and a football.

Northern Illinois competes in—you guessed it—the dreaded MAC conference. The school cut men’s and women’s track and field and cross-country after the 1981-82 season in “what is believed to be a cost-cutting measure,” according to a school spokesperson. The women’s harriers made a comeback in the 1995-96 school year, and the women’s track and field team followed in 1999-00. In addition to racking up all those air miles between DeKalb, Illinois, and San Diego, the NIU football players will receive $205 Best Buy gift cards, Reactor Heavy Water watches, Maui Jim sunglasses, and hats for good measure.

The Military Bowl is the only game of the college football postseason featuring two schools that have slashed their men’s running programs. In the case of Marshall, from non-powerhouse Conference USA, it was indoor and outdoor track in 2003 due to budget cuts. For Maryland, which is in its final season of ACC play before jumping to the more lucrative Big Ten, it was cross-country and indoor track getting the boot last summer due to budget cuts—along with men’s and women’s swimming, men’s tennis, women’s water polo, and acrobatics and tumbling. Football players from both teams will receive Playstation 4 game consoles, as well as winter hats and Ogio backpacks.

It’s the Rebels’ first bowl appearance since 2000 and they hail from the Mountain West—a non-power conference—so it must be stated that the football team is hardly a juggernaut. Still, win or lose, each Rebel football player will leave Dallas with a new Fitbit Flex watch, an ESPN hat, a football, and their choice of items from a gift suite. Meanwhile, though the school offers women’s cross-country and track and field, it hasn’t fielded a men’s varsity program in more than three decades. According to a school spokesperson, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas launched men’s track and field and cross-country in 1968, but cut the former in 1980 and the latter in 1982 to “fulfill Title IX requirements.” The school also cut men’s wrestling, women’s volleyball, and women’s tennis at the time, but the women’s sports have since been reinstated.

South Carolina is the first Southeastern Conference (SEC) team on this list, and they’re the only one in the nation’s premier football conference that does not offer men’s cross-country. That’s because South Carolina cut the team in 1995 because of an SEC initiative that stated all schools must sponsor two more women’s sports than men’s by the beginning of the 1995 school year, according to a school spokesperson. (Because of the gridiron dominance of the SEC, whose teams has claimed every football national title since 2006, there’s a growing demand from some Gamecocks fans for the school to reinstate men’s cross-country and add other varsity sports.) For their participation in the Orlando-based bowl, each football player will receive a $450 Best Buy gift card/shopping spree, a Timely Watch Co. watch, and a Russell Athletic workout shirt.

The former Conference USA school now competing in the newly formed American Athletic Conference cut men’s cross-country in 2007 and gave an unusual reason for the decision: “We believe that without a men’s track and field team,” then-Central Florida director of athletics Keith Tribble said at the time, “the men’s cross-country program does not fit into our strategic plan moving forward.” (Tribble resigned four years later amid an NCAA investigation into possible UCF football and men’s basketball recruiting violations that resulted in one-year postseason bans for both teams.) A school spokesperson confirmed that UCF did not have a men’s track and field program at the time of the cross-country cuts because it had already eliminated it in the mid-1990s “due to Title IX regulations.” The football Knights will collect Fossil watches, Ogio Cube backpacks, and gift suite swag for their bowl appearance.

Just as South Carolina is the only SEC school without a men’s cross-country team, Vanderbilt is the only SEC school without a men’s track and field team. Vanderbilt track and field last competed in the SEC outdoor championships in 1978 (Vanderbilt officials have not confirmed the reason for the program’s elimination.) The school’s men’s cross-country team has arguably suffered without a spring track season, perennially finishing at or near last place in the SEC cross-country championships. For their bowl game appearance, Vandy football players will receive Samsung Galaxy Tab 3s, Fossil watches, Oakley shades, hats, and footballs.

It’s only fitting that the last school on this list comes from the MAC. Yes, Ball State cut men’s cross-country, indoor track, and outdoor track ahead of the 2004-05 school year due to budget cuts. Meanwhile, their football players will return to Muncie, Indiana, from the bowl game in Mobile, Alabama, with new Sol Republic wireless speakers, Timely Watch Co. watches, Mercury Luggage storage trunks, and footballs.

It’s no coincidence that most of the teams on this list come from outside D-I’s power five conferences: when you try to match the on-field might of schools with far greater resources, you can wind up spending yourself into a hole—and that leads to hard cuts like many of the ones listed here. Too often, as much of this year’s class of bowl participants shows, the allure of football glory has come at the indirect expense of runners.

Nick Weldon examined the crisis of cuts to D-I men’s running programs in the January 2014 issue of Runner’s World. You can read that story here.